Lived in France for 3 years, worked as an English teacher. Now I've changed directions and will be starting life over in the US. These are my adventures...

Thursday, January 29, 2009

January 29th - Jeudi Noir (Black Thursday)

All across France today, millions of french workers are protesting the political policies of Nicolas Sarkozy. The SNCF, public schools and La Poste are all on strike as well as many other public sector work places. My school is closed today and all of the teachers are on strike. The french are pissed and letting the government know about it!

They are pissed for the following reasons:

*The government gave french banks millions of Euros after announcing to the public that there was no more money to invest in employment or other areas to ease the financial crisis, but the banks are not giving out loans or higher interest rates

*The elmination of thousands of french jobs, however the salaries of Sarkozy administration have risen and average french salaries have not.

*The overall costs of french buying power have decreased while the cost of everday expenses has severly increased

I'm very sympathetic for this cause so this morning I went to the manifestation and showed my support. Here are some photos: